Results reported in the literature in this respect are some what contradictory.Some authors who worked with apples and peaches noticed an increase in degree of browning with an increase in phenolic content and suggested that BI is determined by the amount of phenolic compounds present in the fruit.3,33 However, Amiot et al13 found that the degree of browning measured by absorbance at 400nm soluble pigments) and lightness L* insoluble pig- ments) was closely related to the amount of phenols degraded.In a study with artichoke heads,Lattanzioet al6 reported that changes in the levels of phenolic substrates of artichoke heads during storage do not run parallel to the appearance and intensity of browning. Lee et al33 reported that the degree of browning of peach cultivars was correlated with their phenolic content R2 = 0.67). Goupy et al 34 reported that the degree of browning of apple was related to the amounts and types of degraded phenols.They stated that, owing to coupled oxidation, the oxidised amounts within one type could be increased or decreased by increasing amounts in the other phenols. Therefore, for equivalent total phenolic contents, the resulting pigments could vary both quantitatively and qualitatively, leading to widely different values of L*, a* and b*.